lasttimeisaw While Brian De Palma's BODY DOUBLE taps adeptly into its hetero-normative erotic thrust, in post-mortem, its central plot fits right into a cracking-a-nut-with-a-sledgehammer case that if the nefarious perpetrator simply needs an eye-witness for his purported burglary-turned-murder skulduggery, he really wouldn't have concocted such an involute set-up to pull the wool over the eyes of our protagonist, Jack Scully (Wasson), a struggling actor in Hollywood afflicted by claustrophobia. So what De Palma blatantly exploits down pat is the libidinous bent and voyeuristic tantalization mostly derived from the straight male demography, plundering Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO no end, BODY DOUBLE's misbegotten plot is at first a thoroughgoing manifestation of female objectification through man's wish-fulfillment, as if in real world, a luscious woman really enjoys putting on such a show for no one's gratification but herself, also the camp choice from a telephone cord to an electric drill in terms of the murder weapon in the archly designed gore climax does writ large a wicked sign of its times and De Palma's thinly-veiled mean-spiritness. Jack Scully is hare-brained enough to not suspect something bizarre is afoot right from the start, but the same can be referred to the culprit, so inimitable is the seductive routine that he must hire the porn star who invents it to do the same performance, and thanks to the slipshod prosthetics wearing by the ghastly-looking "Indian", any sharp-eyed spectator can more or less guess who is underneath that halfway through the journey, ergo, thrill is drained by half. Having said that, Melanie Griffith does hold court in her breakthrough performance as the titular double, who only makes her appearance in the second half but charmingly weds immaculate allure with an air of nonchalance in her trademark cooing articulation, the paradigm of a woman in the eyes of her opposite sex beholder. Ultimately, the takeaway of the film is exclusively ocular apart from Griffith's grand entrance, the strikingly futuristic dwelling Chemosphere and a vampy music video of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's RELAX are here to stay, but as for De Palma's facility, that Dutch-angle tunnel-vision might be any viewer's best shot.

subxerogravity And now watching it fully realizing it's a De Plama movie, I can see what a huge fan of Hitchcock De Plama is, which makes it so much cooler.This movie feels like Vertigo, Strangers in a Train, Rear Window, all combine.Craig Wesson was a perfect leading man in this, playing a young actor trying to get out of his shell, but it's funny, every time I see Wesson I keep thinking Bill Maher (He was the guy in Amazon Women on the Moon). He plays Jake Scully doing a B-Vampire movie, Vampire's Kiss, who's Claustrophobia effects shooting. He comes home and finds his lady in bed with another man (Following a long beautiful tracking scene down the hallway, which everyone could see coming, except Jake, in turn making it sadder). His life is on a downward spiral, until he meets a fellow struggling actor who cuts him a break allowing him to house sit, it's here where he begins spying on his next store neighbor that gets him tied up in a mystery, when someone else has taking interest in her It has some great visuals that you would expect from a De Plama picture, but more than anything it's a great homage to Alfred Hitchcock, just combining some of his best films into one. Makes me wonder what the fat man would have thought of the movie if he was alive to see it. If De Plama were not already so skilled at his craft, with great acknowledgment of that skill, this movie could have been shunned for ripping off Hitchcock (Although when done right Hitchcock is definitely the guy to rip off). De Plama's style seems to shine more in the violence in the film, which he shows far more than Hitchcock.Plus I love movies about Hollywood. Taking place at the end of the Golden Age of Porn, it was cool looking at how the industry worked when porn was more of a movie industry.Body Double has always been a movie worth watching, whenever I caught it, but now its even better knowing it's a Brian De Plama (channeling Hitchcock) film.http://cinemagardens.com

Robert McElwaine Arguably the one movie among Director Brian DePalma's back catalogue which owes a great debt to his hero, the late great Alfred Hitchcock. Body Double marks something of an oddity which far from perfect didn't deserve the critical dismissal it received, leading to it being a commercial failure at the box office. It also marked the closest thing that actor Craig Wasson had to a mainstream leading role. The movie revolves around Jake Scully, (Wasson) a struggling actor starring in cheap, tawdry Vampire flick which proves more trouble than it's worth. He suffers from claustrophobia which Isn't exactly helpful when he has to appear in scenes of him sleeping in a coffin. Upon arriving home he finds his girlfriend in bed with another man, forcing him to find a new home. A chance meeting with fellow out of work actor Sam Bouchard at an acting workshop proves fortuitous as he needs a house-sitter while he's away on an acting job. Jake jumps at the chance of taking care of the plush apartment, and to top things off, each night a sexy alluring neighbour who lives in the building across performs a sexy striptease which Jake views via a telescope. This leads to an unhealthy obsession with wanting to meet her which eventually leads to him witnessing her murder. Inevitably finding himself the chief suspect he finds that he must work to clear his name which gradually draws himself in to the seedy world of the porn industry and where he learns that everything he saw that night wasn't quite as it seemed. Glossy, beautifully filmed and with a slightly surreal edge Body Double while largely effective and never boring is marred predominantly by a vacuous plot which tries to hide the silliness behind flashy window dressing. De Palma delights in excess which was very much a hallmark of the eighties, especially in the shamelessly O.T.T. murder scene and when Jake reluctantly appears in a pornographic Horror Movie, marching through a brothel to the strains of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's, Relax, and marks an inspired foray in to opulence and indulgence which De Palma captures beautifully. Ultimately a movie of two halves with the first being one long set-up for the main plot as Jake's obsession with the mystery woman grows unabated. Wasson, a limited actor in some people's view is actually effectively cast here as he makes for a likable screen presence. He has an amiable, good natured quality which makes for it being all the more troubling and cringe-making as he descends in to essentially becoming a stalker. It's these moments which ironically prove more tense and unnerving than the inevitable killing. Unfortunately the combining of plot aspects from of two of Hitchcock's more renowned thrillers don't exactly make for a cohesive plot, which under close scrutiny is rather flimsy. The eventual plot twists are either predictable or when they do arrive although unexpected don't have the jarring effect of shock they were clearly designed to invoke. On the plus side, Melanie Griffith who doesn't make her long awaited appearance until over an hour in to the picture is on top sleazy yet naive and ultimately bemused form as porn star, Holly Body(moniker which was actually taken by a genuine porn star after the movies release. Below the surface there is however some rewarding self referential observations on the pitfalls of the Hollywood film industry, De Palma sublimely delights in bewildering his audience with a neat psychological deception which will have you double guessing yourself. Topped off by a beautiful, haunting score by Pino Dinaggio it's an entertaining foray in to style over substance, deserving of the critical reappraisal it has garnered. Not necessarily to be missed if you can get past it's shortcomings.

Martin Bradley One of Brian De Palma's masterpieces and yet one that is grossly underrated. It's amazing how, even in this day and age, (see "The Neon Deomn"), critics still tend to judge films on content rather than on style or technique and "Body Double" is style personified. He was still paying homage to Hitchcock, (in this case both "Rear Window" and "Vertigo") and he still tended to use actors who were somewhat limited in their abilities, (the exception being the extraordinary Melanie Griffith who won the National Society of Film Critics Best Supporting Actress prize), but the set pieces are sublime and the suspense sequences are beautifully handled. Essential.